This one's on Mom.

by Ash
(Florida)

In addition to his sensory seeking behaviors, my son has tactile defensiveness. He dislikes things like finger painting, holding hands, sand, soap suds, and ants. He really dislikes ants-all bus really. Since he is my first child I never thought twice over the fact that he never spent time watching bugs.

One day we were at a friend's house and her two year old came up to me to give me something she had in her hand. Thinking nothing of it, I opened my hand and was shortly given a fast, dead beetle! I shrieked and dropped it in surprise. I had no idea that kids do this! My son has no desire to be on the same surface as a bug let alone touch one! Afterward I had to laugh and think how much my son's sensory difficulties have shaped not only him, but me as a patent.